A User Equipment (UE)—such as a cellular phone, smart phone, tablet computer, laptop computer, smart watch, and other mobile device—is often configured to perform positioning techniques to determine the location of the UE. For example, multilateration techniques may be used to determine the location of the UE based on positioning signals received from multiple base stations of a wireless network. One example of a positioning technique that uses multilateration is Observed Time Difference Of Arrival (OTDOA), which is a long term evolution (LTE) positioning procedure defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). In OTDOA, the UE receives positioning reference signals (PRS) or cell-specific reference signals (CRS) from nearby base stations. The UE makes Reference Signal Time Difference (RSTD) measurements using time of arrival estimates of the received PRS from multiple base stations.
To perform positioning techniques, such as OTDOA, the UE relies on assistance data that include information about the positioning signals and/or the base stations. The location of the UE may be determined by the UE itself, or the measurements made by the UE may be transmitted to a location server of the wireless network, which then determines the location of the UE.